


karate gimmick

by ballpoint_banana



Series: cheap heat [1]
Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: 1980s, Alternate Universe - Wrestling, Fighting Kink, Fist Fights, M/M, Performance Art, Power Play, Pro-Wrestling, Rivalry, Unresolved Sexual Tension, for teens. you know. like you do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29821626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint_banana/pseuds/ballpoint_banana
Summary: They spend the next several minutes sailing gracefully between grappling and throwing, kicking and punching, blocking and sweeping and falling and then right back to grappling again. It’s like dancing, is what it is—dancing while maybe secretly trying to kill each other.-(Wherein the All-Valley is an under-18 indie pro wrestling federation, and Johnny and Daniel just can't seem to stop trying to tear each other apart—inside and outside the ring.)
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Series: cheap heat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194350
Comments: 19
Kudos: 40





	karate gimmick

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. I have no explanation or justification for this, except to say that a wise man once said "the best way to approach pro wrestling is to look at it like a soap opera where people settle their differences by beating each other up." And y'all? Y'ALL? That's just Cobra Kai.

When he tells people that he’s the reigning champ of the All-Valley Under-18 Pro Wrestling League, Johnny usually gets asked the same two questions.

The first is, _So is it all fake?_

And Johnny says _No,_ but he thinks to himself, _What isn’t?_

Kreese once told him to look at it like he’s an actor on a stage. It’s his job to go up there and recite his lines; to ad-lib in all the places where he knows he can get away with it; to take whatever gets handed to him and own it, become it, spin it into fucking gold like his next breath depends on it. Johnny had liked that advice, because that’s pretty much how he already lives his life, anyway.

He would rather die than give anyone the impression that what goes down during a fight isn’t one-hundred percent real, because that’s the first rule of wrestling, the rock on which this whole damn thing is built. It doesn’t feel like lying. Sure, Johnny knows exactly what’ll happen at the end of every match; but so what? It’s all about the journey, not the destination, and he _is_ the journey. That’s him up there—every hold, every throw, every strike. That’s his body making it all happen, his sweat, his spit, his knuckles splitting and his bit-tongue bleeding and his head getting pinned down on the mat.

As far as Johnny is concerned, that’s as real as it fucking gets.

The second question is a follow-up to the first, and it’s broached by those who have stood ringside and watched him in action. These are the people who’ve seen that look Johnny gets in his eye when he’s fighting; they’ve witnessed him at his most ruthless and charming, at his peak, when he could sell just about any angle and maybe even tear a guy’s head off if he had to. These are the people who ask him, _But is that part really true? Do you really hate Daniel LaRusso?_

And this one’s an easy answer. It is the one gospel truth in this entire enterprise; Johnny’s guiding fucking light.

Yep. He does.

He really, _really_ hates Daniel LaRusso.

***

It’s Johnny’s turn to win tonight, and about damn time, if you ask him. Since LaRusso blew into town a few months ago and started fucking up every aspect of Johnny’s life—including but definitely not limited to wrestling—they’ve duked it out five times, and Johnny’s only won twice.

That isn’t enough. Not even close. Every loss makes him look weaker, and the weaker he looks, the easier it’ll be for the All-Valley powers-that-be to justify handing him yet another loss down the road. A vicious fucking cycle—one he’s about to break.

But not without a good show.

Johnny charges across the ring, bounces off the ropes, and grabs LaRusso from behind. Their bodies collide like crashing cars.

For a second, Johnny thinks he might actually tackle this fucking string bean to the floor by mistake; but LaRusso bends his knees and plants his feet, and Johnny manages to keep himself from hurtling any further through space. He's got his arms wrapped around LaRusso’s chest, squeezing like he’s trying to crush the kid in some backwards bear hug, and LaRusso—boring motherfucker that he is—doesn't even attempt to free himself for show. Instead, he's stupidly calm, breathing slow and steady; Johnny can feel the rise and fall of LaRusso’s chest against his forearms. He wants to put a finger on why that pisses him off so fucking much when suddenly LaRusso throws his arms upwards and behind himself, grabbing onto the back of Johnny’s collar and holding on tight.

Johnny’s tall, so he hunkers down to make LaRusso’s reach easier, pretending like he’s getting ready to drop them both, and he ends up with his nose pressed right up against LaRusso’s shoulder, the smell of sweat strong through the fabric of his gi.

LaRusso whispers, barely a breath: “Ready?”

“Fuck you,” Johnny snarls.

And with that, they’re tumbling—LaRusso hurls himself forward in full force, using the momentum to flip Johnny over his shoulder and slam him down, and in barely a blink they’re both on the mat. There’s an eruption of noise from the spectators; there can’t be more than a hundred people in this rented middle school gym, maybe even half that, but the cheers bounce off the walls and off the inside of Johnny’s skull, and it sound like thousands.

His ears ring as he tries to catch his breath, but all he gets is a second; LaRusso makes a move like he’s about to try and pin Johnny, and that’s Johnny’s cue to move. He presses his hands flat beside his head, rocks his knees back towards his chest, then kicks himself up to a standing position, which earns him several gasps and whoops. That makes Johnny wanna grin like a wolf—so he does.

“You gotta do better than that!” he says, loud enough for even the cheap seats to hear him.

LaRusso glares at him from the ground, then pushes himself up onto his feet. They stare each other down, partly to strike the fear of God into one another and partly to make sure they’re both still breathing. When it's clear there's no broken bones or blood geysers anywhere in sight, LaRusso crouches, raises his fists, and nods. Johnny strikes the same pose.

Now it’s time for the real fun.

It was Johnny’s gimmick first, the karate. Kreese taught it to him, drawing on his experience in mixed martial arts and the hardcore wrestling scene (and maybe also something that happened to him in Vietnam—whatever, Johnny can’t keep it all straight). It had made Johnny unstoppable; nobody could tear their eyes off him in the ring, the way he’d chop down those sniveling babyfaces from all across the Valley like they were puny blades of grass. He wasn’t just the best fighter—he was a gladiator, slaughtering anybody who dared to enter his domain and looking rad as hell while doing it.

But then Daniel fucking LaRusso showed up. This pint-sized bastard made moves on his girl and ruined his Halloween, so frankly, Johnny would have been more than content to beat the living hell out of him every day for the rest of high school the good old fashioned way. But then LaRusso went and found himself some old Japanese guy to be his keeper, and yeah, okay, _maybe_ said old Japanese guy had roundhouse-kick prowess that Johnny had not been anticipating; and before Johnny knew it, Kreese was striking a deal: if LaRusso agreed to join the All-Valley, then Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai stable would stop whaling on him outside the ring. That had seemed alright to Johnny, at first—until LaRusso started training with that roundhouse-kicking old man and _stole_ Johnny's entire God damn gimmick, right down to the outfit—although, Johnny would make the point that LaRusso’s gi is white and lame, unlike Johnny’s, which is black and totally badass. Devil’s in the details.

And to add insult to all this injury? LaRusso is so fucking sanctimonious about the whole thing. He’s always blathering on about how his “sensei” has been teaching him _“real”_ karate, as if Johnny’s just some chump standing here with his dick in his hand.

 _Well, let’s see if this is real enough for him,_ Johnny thinks brightly, right before kicking LaRusso square in the chest.

LaRusso flies backwards into the ropes, and the crowd erupts into flurry of jeers and boos. Johnny can feel the heat coming off of them, the scorn. It’s electrifying. When LaRusso stands up straight again, Johnny doesn’t let him catch his breath; he hits him hard with a lariat-legsweep combo, toppling LaRusso and sending them both crashing back down to the mat.

LaRusso grunts when he hits the ground, and Johnny watches the crowd gasp and wince right alongside him.

“You all think he’s had enough yet?” Johnny yells. “Because I sure don’t!” On impulse, he brings his body up, then comes down hard, shoulder-first onto LaRusso’s chest. LaRusso makes a broken noise.

“Fuck, man,” he wheezes through his teeth. “Take it easy!”

Johnny smiles and keeps his voice low. “In your fucking dreams.”

They spend the next several minutes sailing gracefully between grappling and throwing, kicking and punching, blocking and sweeping and falling and then right back to grappling again. It’s like dancing, is what it is—dancing while maybe secretly trying to kill each other. As planned, they each get one near-fall, and by the time that second fake-out rolls around, Johnny can feel the audience humming with excitement, itching for the finish. They’re down on the mat and LaRusso is trying to get away from him; Johnny reaches out to grab one of his ankles like a lunging snake.

What’s supposed to happen next is this: Johnny will drag LaRusso towards him and whale on him a little, and as much as he’d love to really do a number on him—maybe give one of those big Bambi eyes a shinner—the most he’ll do is glint his knuckles off LaRusso’s cheekbones. The audience will still cry out in fear, though, because Johnny is good at his damn job, and he knows how to angle his punches just right to make them look deadly.

Then, LaRusso will catch one of Johnny’s punches and twist his arm, get him in a leg-lock, flip him over, stand back up, and Johnny’ll stand too. By this point, LaRusso will be looking battered and sweat-shined, the same way he did in rehearsal, and Johnny will really work the crowd into a frenzy with some fightin’ words before delivering his finisher—a “Cobra Strike," right to LaRusso’s leg.

LaRusso will tap out. Johnny will win. Easy as pie.

That’s what’s supposed to happen.

What happens instead is this: LaRusso kicks him in the fucking face.

It’s an explosion of sensations, all at once: LaRusso’s foot making contact with his nose; his head snapping backwards; hot blood gushing down his chin; the sound of the crowd going absolutely nuts. On instinct, Johnny lets go of LaRusso’s ankle and cradles his lower face, trying to protect himself, and he fucking hates that _that’s_ his first impulse.

When he looks up, he catches a flash of LaRusso’s face—mouth agape, eyes wide. He’s surprised. This was an accident, then—an errant movement of his leg during the scramble to get away from Johnny.

But LaRusso’s eyes are glinting, the corners of his mouth threatening a smile. A _happy_ accident.

Johnny’s gonna kill him.

He has just enough time to lunge towards LaRusso and grab the front of that stupid white gi with his bloodstained hands before he’s interrupted. The guy who gets paid to stand in the corner in a pinstripe shirt runs towards the ring, then crosses his arms into an “X” shape above his head. It’s a signal to the guys behind the scenes that there’s been an injury in the ring—and it’s a signal to Johnny and LaRusso to wrap this shit up _yesterday_ in any way they can, plans and scripts and rehearsals be damned.

Johnny turns back to look at LaRusso, and LaRusso quirks an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. It’s a question. No—a dare. Johnny grits his teeth, a million possibilities running through his mind, but then he tastes the blood in his mouth and realizes that there’s really only one choice here.

“Fine,” he says, loosening his grip on LaRusso’s gi. “ _Fine_ —but this isn’t fucking over. You hear me?”

LaRusso scoffs in disbelief, grinning in earnest now, and good God, Johnny’s never wanted to punch someone more in his entire life.

“Pretty sure it’s over,” LaRusso says; and when he tackles Johnny to the ground, Johnny just sees red.

***

The bad news is his nose is broken. The worse news is Kreese is pissed at him for letting LaRusso snipe the win.

There is no good news.

Backstage—if you can really call this middle school’s band room “backstage;” there’s _trumpets_ in here, for God’s sake—a paramedic student from Los Angeles Valley Community College wipes blood off of Johnny’s face. Kreese is standing over his shoulder, seething in a barely-contained way that makes Johnny feel like he just drank battery acid, and when the paramedic puts a splint on his nose, Johnny feels his cheeks burn with a shame so hot, he’s worried he’ll catch fire.

As the paramedic is packing up, he floats the idea that Johnny might want to go to the hospital to make sure everything is alright.

“That won’t be necessary,” Kresse says, putting a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. The paramedic shrugs, because that’s just the kind of commitment to the job you get when you pay people in college credits instead of cash, and when he takes off, Johnny and Kreese are alone, tucked away in the corner of the room.

Kreese tightens his grip on Johnny’s shoulder.

Johnny feels his tongue go dry.

“Sir—”

“Don’t,” Kreese hisses, “speak. Do you hear me? I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen.”

Johnny can’t see Kreese’s face from here, and he isn’t about to chance a look upwards in his direction. Instead, he just picks a spot on the far wall to stare at—a pattern in the stucco bricks that looks sort of like a smiley face—and nods slowly.

“What happened in the ring today,” Kreese says, “was a disgrace. Your performance disgraced not only you, but all your fellow Cobra Kai. Do you hear me?”

Kreese pauses, and Johnny realizes he’s actually expecting an answer. Slowly, he nods again.

“LaRusso injured you. So what? That means you throw away a match that was yours to win, just because you’re afraid of getting a little blood on the mat?”

Johnny licks his lips, still tangy and metallic, and thinks to himself that that isn’t really fair. He and LaRusso had to end things as quickly as possible. They _had_ to. And the obvious ending to that story back there wasn’t two more minutes of grappling; it was the guy who just got kicked in the face getting pinned by the guy who just did the kicking. Shortest distance between two points is a straight line and all that crap.

Thinking about it infuriates Johnny, makes him wanna scream—but what else could he have done?

It’s like Kreese is reading his mind; slowly, he lets his hand slide off of Johnny’s shoulder and walks around to face him. Johnny is sitting in a shitty metal folding chair and Kreese is looming over him, looking at Johnny like he’s chewed-up gum he just found on the bottom of his shoe.

“LaRusso fought dirty,” Kreese says. “Not in kayfabe—that was real fucking dirt. And what did you do? You let yourself be disrespected. When that crowd saw you getting pinned up there, they didn’t see a good little boy following the rules. All they saw was a loser.”

Johnny’s heart drops into his stomach. He imagines what it must have looked like from the outside—LaRusso kicking the shit out of him, then ending the match like it was nothing, like _Johnny_ was nothing. His mind recoils.

In front of him, Kreese slowly bends down into a crouch, looking Johnny straight in the eye.

“Son, what I’m about to say next is the most important thing you’ll ever hear, so you better listen closely. If your opponent gets the best of you like that, you’ve already lost. You’re a dead man. _You_ need to be the one to strike first, and strike hard. No mercy. Do you understand?”

Johnny nods a final time. “Yes, sir. No mercy.”

“Good.” Kreese stands and takes a few steps back, putting a foot or two between him and Johnny.

Johnny lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“That broken nose will take you out of commission for at least a week,” Kreese says. “That’s bad news. You already look weak after today, and LaRusso’s star is rising. When you get back in that ring, you need to be ruthless. Show the higher-ups that you’re a worthy opponent for him. If you do that, I’m sure we can get a match set up for the two of you in the final showdown of the season—maybe even something fun. Knockout match, hm?”

Johnny swallows. “But…what if they hand him the win?”

Kreese smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Well. If that’s the case, then I suppose you’ll just have to take it from him.”

***

And here Johnny had thought that the talking-to from Kreese had been bad. He’d spent all weekend replaying that conversation over and over again in his mind like a broken record, stewing in his own shame. Silly fucking him.

It’s nothing compared to the fallout at school.

On Monday, Johnny arrives and promptly hears from Bobby that half the student body is already talking about how LaRusso nearly drove Johnny’s nose back into his brain. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. And oh boy, once Johnny actually _shows up_ —his nose indeed looking very bruised and splinted and stupid—that number quickly jumps up to the _entire_ student body.

And—yeah, no. Fuck this. If anyone thinks that Johnny’s waiting an entire week to settle this score, then they are out of their fucking mind.

Johnny does wait a few hours, though. Patiently. He sits through all his classes, spinning a pencil and rubbing his lip, thinking solely about what he’s going to do to LaRusso when he sees him next. They don’t share any classes today, and much to Johnny’s disappointment, LaRusso isn’t in the cafeteria at lunch, either; nor, Johnny notices, is Ali, which is really just icing on the fucking cake. It gives him just one more reason to re-arrange LaRusso’s face today.

He finally finds him after school, getting his textbooks from his locker like the nerd he is. As Johnny peers at him from behind a corner, he briefly considers jumping LaRusso right then and there—but the hallway is mostly clear by now, and Johnny doesn’t want any half-measures. His beat-downs are to be witnessed by everyone, or else by no one at all—no in-between.

So, after the very last straggler is gone from the hall, Johnny turns the corner, walks up to LaRusso, and smacks the stack of textbooks right out of his hands. LaRusso jumps back, startled, then looks at Johnny’s face. Grimaces.

“Oof,” LaRusso says.

“Fuck you.” Johnny gathers the front of LaRusso’s t-shirt into his fist and yanks him closer. “I told you this isn’t over.”

LaRusso sighs and holds his hands up, palms out as if to say _no weapons, see?_

“Johnny,” he says. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to kick you.”

“But you did.”

LaRusso scoffs. “Yeah, well—it was a fight. I know this isn’t how you guys do things around here, but where _I’m_ from, when two people are fighting, they usually try to hurt each other. I guess my muscle memory kicked in.”

Johnny tightens his grip on LaRusso’s collar. “You’re a snake, you know that? And after all that self-defense, woo woo garbage you try to sell in the ring? Give me a break.”

“Nothing to sell,” LaRusso says, eyes narrowing. “That’s real. That’s what I believe in.”

“Oh,” Johnny says slowly. “Well then, if it’s all so real, I’m sure you won’t mind me doing this.”

He lets go of LaRusso and pushes hard on his shoulders, shoving him backwards and into the lockers behind them. LaRusso’s back catches his locker door and he winces, folding in on himself in that way people tend to when you shove ‘em into locker doors.

“We have an agreement,” LaRusso says, his eyebrows furrowing. “No fighting outside the ring.”

Johnny spits a laugh.

“I’m a heel, remember? I cheat. And so do you, clearly.”

“I don’t—” LaRusso starts, but Johnny’s getting pretty fucking sick of talking, so he hits LaRusso with a wide-arching punch right to the jaw.

When his bare knuckles make contact with LaRusso’s face, Johnny feels better than he has in days. LaRusso’s head twists sideways, and Johnny catches a view of him in profile before he sinks down to the ground and cradles his cheek in his hand.

“Jesus!” LaRusso says; then he looks up at Johnny with his big, stupid eyes, and Johnny sees hate there, _real_ hate, and a chill runs down his spine.

“Go ahead,” Johnny says, raising his fists. “What the hell are you waiting for? I struck first, pussy.”

And that seems to be good enough for LaRusso. One leg-sweep later, Johnny finds himself down on the floor, and LaRusso lunges at him.

It’s like every bit of training either of them has ever received goes flying out the window, the two of them scrabbling there on the ground like junkyard dogs. In the ring, they have to work together to hurt one another right; but out here? It’s a fucking free-for-all.

It’s not as if they can’t fight properly—of course they can. The All-Valley matches may be scripted, but they’re made up from the building blocks of real moves and actual fighting techniques. But Johnny can’t focus on any of that now; all he wants to do is grab, tear, rip, shred, _hurt_ , and he doesn’t have the space in his brain to calculate any fancy karate moves. Clearly LaRusso feels the same, because Johnny’s got a hand on LaRusso’s face, trying to push him away, and suddenly he feels a sharp pain and realizes LaRusso just bit his God damn finger.

“Motherf—” Johnny hisses, yanking his hand away. “Fuck you!”

“That all you know how to say?” LaRusso says, and instead of answering such a stupid question, Johnny pulls his legs up close to his chest and kicks LaRusso clean off him.

It’s hard to say exactly how long they spend clambering like that before they really, truly get anywhere; it could be a few seconds, or minutes, or maybe they’re down there for hours, but eventually, Johnny manages to take the lead, flattening LaRusso out underneath him and straddling his torso.

He’s sitting right on the space between LaRusso’s chest and his stomach, knees pinning down LaRusso’s forearms. He wishes that LaRusso was the one with the splint here so that he could press one perfect thumb down against the bridge of his nose and make him scream—but as it stands, he settles for spitting on LaRusso’s face, which earns him an utterly disgusted noise.

Then LaRusso fucking _headbutts_ him, which—Jesus Christ, what kind of crazy Jersey shit is that? A fresh, sharp burst of pain radiates out from the locust of Johnny’s nose; he yells, hands flying to his forehead, and LaRusso manages to wriggle his arms free from under Johnny’s legs and shove Johnny off of him. Then, after a series of events that involve Johnny taking a knee to the chin and an elbow to his sternum, he finds himself on the bottom of this two-man pile up.

LaRusso’s on top of him, his knees on either side of Johnny’s ribs, and he’s staring down at Johnny with eyes that are wild and angry and furious—like Johnny is the monster under his bed, the cat who killed his pet hamster, every bad thing that’s ever happened to him and then some. Johnny glowers back, reaches for LaRusso’s neck—but the second his hands start moving north, LaRusso grabs Johnny’s wrists.

He pins Johnny’s arms down up above his head with a speed and fury that’s genuinely startling, and Johnny feels all the wind get knocked out of him. The slamming motion brings LaRusso down closer to him—so close that their faces are only inches apart.

For a moment, they just stare at each other, huffing and panting, not sure what to do anymore because yep, Johnny’s pinned. He’s stuck here. The look on LaRusso’s face is loosening from rage into confusion, his eyes flitting all over Johnny’s face as if he’s trying to find something there. In the new stillness, Johnny is suddenly aware of every sensation—the feeling of LaRusso’s fingers manacled around his wrists, and LaRusso’s body pressed up against him, and—fuck, he feels like a prey animal, all his softest, weakest points exposed and wide open for attack. He’s completely powerless.

He can feel his heart hammering in his chest, and something hot and sharp cuts though him, and his eyes flick to LaRusso’s lips without his permission, and—

“I…fuck,” Johnny pants. “Fuck. Get off me.”

He feels like screaming, but to his surprise, he says it quietly and evenly; and he doesn’t have to ask twice. LaRusso immediately lets go of Johnny’s wrists and scrambles off of him, then backwards. Johnny blinks the stars from his eyes—he was lightheaded, he realizes belatedly—and when Johnny finally feels like he can breathe again, he props himself up onto his elbows and sees LaRusso sitting with his back against the lockers, knees pulled tightly to his chest, staring at Johnny like he’s something strange and unfamiliar.

Inexplicably, Johnny feels ashamed.

“I…” LaRusso tries, but stops. He blinks at Johnny, then tries again: “We…” But no luck there, either.

Johnny swallows hard. For a minute, he forgets to try and look terrifying; he’s too focused on trying to get his breath back under control so he can process what the fuck that was, what just _fucking_ happened—

“I’m…leaving,” LaRusso says out of the blue, sounding half-dazed but completely determined.

Johnny blinks. He watches LaRusso hoist himself back onto his feet, then bend down to pick up his textbooks, slowly, one by one. He’s moving like it hurts and he keeps glancing over at Johnny with his stupid fucking Bambi eyes, and suddenly Johnny’s stomach is in knots.

When LaRusso is finished gathering his things, he pauses, then walks over slowly, like he’s afraid maybe Johnny will try to attack him again. He extends one careful hand out in Johnny’s direction, palm bared, no weapons.

And now Johnny _really_ feels like a fucking animal.

If he weren’t frozen, he’d scoff. Hell, he’d laugh. A fucking olive branch. Here. Now.

All Johnny can manage to do is push LaRusso’s hand out of his face.

LaRusso sighs sharply and mutters something under his breath as he turns around, and Johnny is still frozen solid as he watches him walk through the double-doors at the end of the hall and out into the evening.

Johnny’s heart his hammering in his chest harder than it ever has before.

And he can’t tell why.

***

“So now you have a black eye _and_ a broken nose,” Bobby says. He whistles, long and low. “That’s rough, bud.”

“Tell me about it,” Johnny scoffs.

They’re skipping trig class and sitting out on the bleachers, one day after the fight. Johnny told him the broad strokes of it: him and LaRusso trying to kill each other in the hallway after school. No big deal. He left out some of the details; for example, the part where LaRusso managed to get the better of him in the end; or the part where afterwards, he went home and jerked-off in the shower, confused and breathless and still feeling the pain all over when he came.

“Man,” Bobby sighs. “You know, sometimes I wonder if all that shit that goes on between you two in the ring is just an act, but—fuck. You really hate LaRusso, don’t you?”

There’s an old speck of dried blood between Johnny’s teeth; he pokes at it with his tongue and tastes metal. Tries to smile.

“Yep,” he says. “I really fucking do.”


End file.
